Amsterdam, The Netherlands—Day 207

So I started the day by oversleeping by an hour, which meant that I woke up at 8:30 instead of 7:30, so I was late for the zoo! I wanted to get there spot on when it opened at nine o’clock but I ended up being a few minutes late. Dang. I had forgotten to switch my stop watch an hour ahead (the time difference between London and Amsterdam). Anyways, on to more important things.

So I headed to the zoo and got pictures of Tanja, still inside, but in much fresher and shallow water which was nice. Turned out that my few minutes being late didn’t really matter much. I found her just sitting in the water, trying her best to submerge herself in the water but it was hardly enough to cover her. It was still drizzling outside but it seemed apparent that Tanja spent most of her time indoors. A few people came and went while I was watching her—several troublemaking young teens and one super cute guy who came up and told the boys Tanja’s name (he knew!) and stood there for quite a while looking at her. It was just us and I it was so funny—I started to think about how funny it would be if I actually met someone over a hippo (literally, we were standing just about over her). The guy turned to me and we smiled in that sort of, yes, I’ve been watching hippos for too long type of way, and then he left, leaving me with Tanja who, while being cute, was totally unappreciative of my commitment to HER.

After watching her for quite a while and getting the pictures I needed, I decided to head out of the zoo. With map in hand, I made it over to the Van Gogh museum on the tram which was complicated at first but I eventually made it there. The museum was impressive and took an audio tour which is I think the way to do it at a museum so that you can all of the juicy details about a work of art. I then stopped at a supermarket for lunch where I briefly spoke to a girl who was from England (through the woman in the middle of us in the check out line who spoke to both of us in Dutch first) and then got back on the tram.

I got off near a market place that I had passed before and decided to check it out. I found a cute old café and had lunch there, meanwhile outside the rain turned yet again into a downpour so I was happy to be inside this time instead of out, and when I finished I walked around a bit more, took the tram to an internet café, checked out the shopping district, had falafel for dinner on the sidewalk (feeling that I single handedly cause a huge increase in falafel sales as I sat there eating and advertising my falafel. So many people walked past me, went ooooh, that looks good, and then went it). I then walked around some more, found a place for dessert, watched the rain pour down while I ate apple pie, and then went out again. This time when I walked back to the tram to get back to the hotel I stopped to take pictures of the fantastic rainbow that had formed over the city which was quite beautiful. I stopped in at a movie theater to catch Fahrenheit 911 (finally!) and then made it back to the hotel. Basically I did a lot of walking, tram riding and eating today. :)




(c) 2004 Sarah Galbraith. All Rights Reserved.